---
name: "dh_perl"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "debhelper"
version: "13.24.2"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/dh_perl"
---

# dh\_perl(1)

calculates Perl dependencies and cleans up after MakeMaker

## NAME

dh\_perl - calculates Perl dependencies and cleans up after MakeMaker

## SYNOPSIS

**dh\_perl** \[*debhelper options*\] \[**-d**\] \[*library dirs* ...\]

## DESCRIPTION

**dh\_perl** is a debhelper program that is responsible for generating the **${perl:Depends}** substitutions and adding them to substvars files.

The program will look at Perl scripts and modules in your package, and will use this information to generate a dependency on **perl** or **perlapi**. The dependency will be substituted into your package's *control* file wherever you place the token **${perl:Depends}**.

**dh\_perl** also cleans up empty directories that MakeMaker can generate when installing Perl modules.

## OPTIONS

- **-d**

  In some specific cases you may want to depend on **perl-base** rather than the full **perl** package. If so, you can pass the -d option to make **dh\_perl** generate a dependency on the correct base package. This is only necessary for some packages that are included in the base system.

  Note that this flag may cause no dependency on **perl-base** to be generated at all. **perl-base** is Essential, so its dependency can be left out, unless a versioned dependency is needed.

- **-V**

  By default, scripts and architecture independent modules don't depend on any specific version of **perl**. The **-V** option causes the current version of the **perl** (or **perl-base** with **-d**) package to be specified.

- *library dirs*

  If your package installs Perl modules in non-standard directories, you can make **dh\_perl** check those directories by passing their names on the command line. It will only check the *vendorlib* and *vendorarch* directories by default.

## CONFORMS TO

Debian policy, version 3.8.3

Perl policy, version 1.20

## SEE ALSO

[**debhelper**(7)](/debhelper/7.md)

This program is a part of debhelper.

## AUTHOR

Brendan O'Dea \<bod@debian.org\>